


So Little Space, So Much Time

by Sholio



Series: The Epic Post-Series Road Trip of DOOM [8]
Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Gen, Restraints, Sibling Bonding, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 22:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18536314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Tumblr prompt fic, for the request "Ward and Danny, restraints and bad memories." Set post-S2.





	So Little Space, So Much Time

**Author's Note:**

> This story references the mental hospital episode in season one rather heavily.
> 
> Title cribbed from a fic I read a long time ago in a different fandom, but it amused me enough that I couldn't not.

Well, this just damn well figures. This is the way his life tends to go. This is --

"This is _bullshit!"_ Ward yells at the ceiling. Not that it helps. It doesn't even really make him feel better. He yanks at the straps securing him, and feels his heart rate accelerating.

"Ward?" Danny's voice is scratchy and worried, and also the best thing Ward has heard since he woke up in this goddawful place. For a minute, all Ward can do is go limp with relief, because he hasn't even been able to tell if Danny is _breathing_ from over here.

When Ward twists his head to the side, he can just see Danny, strapped down the same way he is -- which is bound to lead to nothing good, Ward suspects. Nobody drugs you and puts you in restraints for good reasons.

Danny, meanwhile, is going through the same process that Ward went through a half-hour ago or so, when _he_ woke up, except Danny at least has the reassurance that the person next to him isn't _dead._ Ward watches Danny systematically test all the straps holding him down before he lets his head drop back to the bed.

"So, are we ..." Danny trails off and takes a few deep breaths, and stares at the ceiling. "Where are we?"

"I was hoping you knew."

"I was unconscious too."

"Yeah," Ward mutters. And if Danny feels anything like he did when _he_ woke up, then Danny is currently working through a really unpleasant headache. Ward had spent the first few minutes just hoping he wouldn't be sick, because no good would come of that when he's strapped down on his back. Danny used to have extra-fast healing because of the chi thing, and as far as Ward's been able to tell, he kinda still does despite the lack of Iron Fist these days, which means he might burn the tranq drugs out of his system faster than Ward has.

It's probably a measure of how far he's come as a person in the last couple of years that Ward is glad of that, despite the sick ache still pulsing at his temples. It's bad enough that one of them has to feel like shit.

"Is it just me," Danny says at last, "or does this look really a _lot_ like Birch Psychiatric?"

"No," Ward says shortly, because he's been thinking the exact same thing ever since he woke up. "We're not even in New York. Obviously, it's not."

"Obviously," Danny says, and then he starts jerking at his bonds again. Ward has already been through this and all he has is the bruises on his wrists to show for it, so he lies back and tries very hard not to think about twisting in bonds very much like this one, cold sweat on his skin, his stomach tied in knots and involuntary shivers wracking his body.

He also -- as Danny makes tiny grunting and rustling sounds five feet away -- tries very hard not to think about the fact that he intentionally got Danny locked up in a place just like this, a couple of years and a lifetime ago.

The dramatic irony was completely lost on him when he was sweating his way through heroin withdrawal, mostly because going off heroin is enough to take a person's mind off almost anything, not to mention that he really didn't like Danny very much then.

As opposed to now, when his wrists and ankles and chest still throb from the amount of twisting and struggling he's been doing during the last half hour, trying to get just one goddamn hand free so he can maybe get the rest of him free and figure out if Danny's still breathing in the bed next to himm.

Now he just lies there and stares at the ceiling until Danny says, "Ward?"

"Yeah?"

"You okay?" Danny says, and Ward lets out his breath in something like a laugh, because that is totally a Danny question, isn't it.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine." He turns his head to the side, then, to see Danny going through another round of trying to escape the straps binding him at the wrist and ankles and torso. "You?"

"Yeah," Danny says, writhing in his bonds. "Just great."

"I was hoping you knew some kind of ... I dunno, Houdini-fu that you could use to get out of here."

"If I _did_ \--" A pause, grunt, struggle. "... don't you think I would have used it when I was ... ngh ... locked up in the other place?"

Right. There it is, isn't it. Ward closes his eyes for a moment, but that means he has nothing to focus on except the pressure on his wrists and ankles, and the fact that he can't move. His eyes snap open, because he can feel where this is going -- it's like a form of claustrophobia, like the trapped feeling he used to get whenever he tried to get away from Harold and ran into roadblocks at every turn. It's the feeling of _No matter how bad this gets, there's no getting away from it_ , and it makes his breath seize up in his chest.

"Ward?" Danny says anxiously.

"Yeah, what."

"Just checking. You were awfully quiet over there." 

"It's called saving my strength," Ward says with his eyes on the ceiling.

"Colleen will get us out," Danny says, which is unwarranted optimism, Ward thinks, considering that Colleen is an ocean away and doesn't even know they're in trouble.

But he says, "Yeah. I'm sure she will."

 

***

 

Time drags and no one comes, and that might be the worst part. There's plenty of time to imagine various terrible scenarios in which the whole point of this cheerful little incarceration is so somebody can try to get the Iron Fist out of Danny, or force the Iron Fist to do something for them -- that's usually what it's about, one of those two things. Which means Ward is here either as leverage, or because they think he has powers too. And that means he gets to either watch whatever they do to Danny, or gets a starring role in his own shitshow, and he's absolutely terrified of both of those options, but trying very hard not to show it. And every time he closes his eyes, he's right back in goddamn Birch with panic beating at the back of his brain, and it _sucks._

Meanwhile Danny keeps trying to make conversation, in a strained kind of way.

"What do you think I should get Colleen for her birthday?"

"You're worrying about this _now?"_ Ward twists his wrists against the bonds for the gazillionth time. He's got bruises on top of bruises now.

"It's a valid question, Ward. I mean, okay, her birthday's not until November, but I feel like I should get an early start on planning --"

"Oh my god," Ward says to the ceiling. "I'm in hell."

Danny laughs at that -- and that's the thing about Danny, isn't it? He just deflects back every ounce of Ward's venom with good humor. There's nothing about Ward that really gets under his skin, not anymore, and Ward has to dig his fingernails into his palms until he masters the urge to yell, _I put you in here, how can you possibly be okay with that?_

He stares up at the ceiling and is horrified to realize the utter narrowness of the emotional ledge that he's walking. His eyes prickle with tears of ... god, he doesn't even _know_ : guilt and misery and fear and frustrated helplessness. He might almost welcome a hallucination of his dad right about now. At least it would give him someone to talk to who would throw his anger back at him. He just wants to yell at somebody, and he's doing his damnedest not to do it at Danny.

Who is. Still. Talking.

"-- tricky thing about buying gifts for Colleen is that she doesn't _want_ much. It's not like generic presents work for her, Ward. Perfume or candy just says, I don't care enough to come up with something that you'd really want. And she doesn't collect _stuff._ I could buy her some kind of expensive art object, but something nice that just goes on a shelf, that's not _her,_ either --"

"Can't you meditate or something?" Ward snaps, as the litany goes on and on and ON.

There is a silence from Danny's bed, long enough to make Ward look over at him, eyes narrowed now as if he can penetrate what's going on Danny's fuzzy head, and then Danny says, "No."

Just that, but it's sharp and strained and it's like everything falls together in that moment and Ward _gets_ why Danny has suddenly turned into a babbling maniac; it's like he suddenly hears all the things Danny's not saying, the same way Ward is sitting on, not just a few issues but a whole library.

There's a long moment of tense silence, in which Danny's harsh breathing is suddenly very noticeable, and then Ward takes a breath and says, "Christmas shopping for Joy was always the worst."

"Yeah?" Danny says. His voice is tight but he sounds a little bit amused.

"I mean, think about it. She's stylish, she's _really_ particular about everything, she never updates the decor in that townhouse ..."

"So what'd you do?"

"I got her perfume," Ward says. "Usually." He thinks of Joy, in the tastefully non-denominationally-decorated Rand Industries offices on Christmas Eve, which was when they usually exchanged gifts. Rolling her eyes at him affectionately, and dabbing Velvet Orchid onto her wrists after opening the tiny store-wrapped vial, like she did every year.

"Did she like it?" Danny says hopefully.

"She wore it, anyway. Look, with Colleen -- what'd you get her last year?"

"I paid for the dojo renovations."

Ward rolls his head toward Danny to give him a look. "That was her _birthday present?"_

"She said she wanted to turn it into a home instead of just a place to work! Why? Was that a bad idea?"

Ward heaves a sigh. He didn't sign up for this shit. "What'd she think of it?"

"She loved it," Danny says warmly.

"Then ... it was a good idea, probably. I don't know. You're loaded, man. Buy her a bird sanctuary or a rehab center for disabled refugees or something."

"Huh," Danny says, staring up at the ceiling thoughtfully, and that's when the door blows in.

 

***

 

So, first of all, just because Colleen's on the other side of the world doesn't mean that she won't notice when Danny is six hours late calling in for their designated Facetime-and-sexting session (or whatever; Ward really tries to be as uninformed about all of that as possible) and get worried enough to call in the cavalry. Second, the cavalry is Walker.

Dammit.

"Hi, boys," Walker says, slashing Ward's bonds with an enormous knife with a curved-edge blade. He'd like to think that she got to him first because she has fond memories of the whole working-together thing, but it's probably because he's closer to the door.

"Do I want to know why you're in Malaysia?" Ward asks, sitting up. After this much time spent flat on his back, the room tilts abruptly as his head spins, and he grabs onto the edge of the bed. He's not wrong about the bruises purpling his wrists. Also, he really needs to pee.

"Work," Walker says. She slashes Danny's restraints, one quick slash of her knife for each strap.

"Lucky for us, then," Danny says, grinning at her as he props himself up on his elbows. She doesn't smile back.

"So who _were_ those guys?" Ward asks.

"They won't be bothering you anymore."

"That's ... not what I -- okay."

He recognizes when the best idea is just getting out of there before the police show up. Danny wobbles a little as he tries to get up, and Ward gets his feet under him in a more-or-less stable kind of way and then offers Danny a hand. He turns back at the door. 

"Do we owe you, or ..."

"Nope," Walker says. "Paid." She's looking around like she's hunting for something. Once again, Ward decides that discretion is the better part of valor in this kind of situation.

"Thank you!" Danny calls. "Say hi to Mary for me!"

Walker grunts and then Ward hauls him out of there.

 

***

 

Their hotel room has remained unmolested by mystery goons or otherwise in the (as it turns out) eighteen hours they've been gone. They have to get a new keycard from the desk, relying on Danny's charm and a sob story about ignorant American tourists getting pickpocketed downtown, but just inside the door to their room, they find a slightly bloodstained package containing both their phones and wallets, with all the contents intact. 

Walker is very thorough.

"Do you think we're still in danger?" Danny asks quietly as they sort through the contents of their wallets. 

Ward glances up at him. They're both still wearing the same clothes they were yesterday. Other than a little more beard-shadow, some nasty-looking bruises, and swollen pinpricks where the darts went in, it's hard to tell more than a couple of hours have passed. "I don't know, Walker's on the case. You really want to tell her we don't trust her security arrangements?"

"No, not really." Danny reaches for his phone and brings up Colleen's contact.

"Dibs on the bathroom," Ward declares, and shuts the door while Danny flips him off.

It takes him a few minutes to actually get into the shower; he's looking at the map of bruises on his body in the mirror, echoes of the restraints written in violet and faded brown across his skin. He turns away from it at last, turns the water up too hot and tilts his face into the spray. And then he sits down slowly in the tub and just ... exists. For a little while.

When he gets out, shaky and clean, he discovers that Danny has left a bathrobe just inside the door, saving him from having to get back into the same two-day-old jeans and shirt, or expose his bruises on his way through the suite to his bedroom.

He loves that fucking idiot a lot sometimes.

"Hey there," Danny says when Ward comes out of the bathroom. "I got room service, so I hope you like meat because, uh, there's a lot of it."

"You are the best goddamn brother," Ward says. It's joking but also heartfelt, and Danny grins and ducks his head and gives Ward's arm a quick squeeze before vanishing into the bathroom with a robe tucked under his arm.

 

***

 

Ward could sleep. He _should_ sleep. But instead he sits up and plays successive hands of solitaire, while Danny spends enough time in the bathroom that it's clear he's having his own private freakout. Ward gets that, and he loses several games of solitaire to himself before Danny finally comes out in a cloud of steam, wrapped up in a fluffy white bathrobe.

"Ward," he says, surprised. "I thought you'd be in bed."

"Not sleepy," Ward lies, laying down another card. "I called room service again. There's cake."

Danny makes a happy "oooh" noise and descends on the plate Ward left on his side of the table. 

"Colleen says that Walker's still working on the details of who those guys were and what they were after," Danny says after a minute or two. "She'll keep us informed. She did say that Walker called her to say the situation is under control and we don't have anything to worry about."

"I feel safer already." Ward decides that clock solitaire is the very worst one, and shuffles the cards back together.

"Listen, Ward, about today ..." Danny says, and Ward grits his teeth and starts laying out another game of basic solitaire because it's all he has the brains for right now. He wishes he'd just gone to bed.

"We don't need to talk about this," he says, looking for an escape hatch when he brought this on himself in the first place.

"Yeah, no, I think we do. I'm not angry at you, you know. About all of that. Then."

That's not quite where he thought this was going to go. Ward deals out a few more cards, and says at last, "I know you're not. What I don't get is why."

"I know why you and Joy did what you did. You were trying to protect the company. You thought I was an imposter."

"Danny, I tried to kill you."

"I know," Danny says quietly, and Ward just -- wants to take the words back. Wants to take the deeds back. Wants to change things he can't change, like he said to Bethany once upon a time, before he did things to her that he can't change either. It seems like he never finishes repeating his mistakes.

And yet, Danny is still here. For some goddamn reason.

"I wish ..." he begins, but for someone like him, that's a road he doesn't want to go down. If a genie popped up in front of him, he'd need at least two dozen wishes to undo his mistakes and all the mistakes that were built on top of those. He looks up at the room lights and thinks about today, and thinks about all the reasons why saying sorry two years late wouldn't fix anything, and finally he says, "You know, while I was strapped down, going through heroin detox --"

"They gave you _heroin?"_ Danny says, sounding horrified.

"Not today. I mean, when Harold had me locked up for possession. In Birch --"

"Wait, when did _that_ happen?"

"Right before I sold you out to the Hand," Ward says sharply, and Danny shuts up and looks at him like he's seeing Ward for the first time.

Which honestly is what Ward is most afraid of, but Danny doesn't look condemning, just thoughtful.

"So today ...?" Danny says, the words rising on a question.

"Wasn't a good day," Ward says, and Danny gives him a grin that's --

It's everything he expects from Danny, honestly: warm and just kind of welcoming him into a club which, in this case, is basically composed of people who have been locked up in shitty mental institutions.

"Yeah, it wasn't really, was it?" Danny says.

"Not really," and Ward pushes his own half-finished plate of cake across the table, because he's never met anyone who can eat the way Danny can. Danny grins at him, and picks up a fork.


End file.
